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Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

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Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#151

Post by danpalmer »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #118
froh42 wrote: post #38

As I didn't update brew for a long time I did not have the analytics version. So I upgraded to see what happens. In fact it did NOT prompt me when enabling analytics, but it did display a notice (hidden in several hundred lines of output during brew upgrade): ------------------- + 5a9e19f...7f13b37 master -> origin/master (forced update) * [new tag] 0.1 -> 0.1 HEAD is now at 7f13b37 Merge pull request #1562 from wood…

> Looking at the website one of homebrew's developers (or at least the website developers) is based over here in Europe. He might be a nice target if you want to raise a stink and litigate. Homebrew lead maintainer here. We're chronically understaffed and underfunded. We have analytics so we can make Homebrew better by figuring out how to prioritise security, maintenance and bug fixes on packages based on how much th…

I realise it's difficult to remember when faced with messages like this, but there are many of us that use Homebrew, accept the tracking, saw the message, and greatly appreciate all of the work you and the team put in.

Keep up the good work.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#154

Post by majewsky »

pvinis wrote: post #136
blub wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US approach to privacy is "let the market sort it out". It has sorted it out by transforming the internet into a giant spying machine sucking up contacts, photos, documents, videos, metadata, what packages you use, when where and how you exercise, everything The EU approach to privacy (eroded by lobbying and lack of control over US companies) is that citizens have a right over their information. They can ask what…

Do you use brew? Have you contributed code to it? Have you installed something using brew, before updating brew for a while? For me, my answers are yes no yes. A while ago, you did that, and you get an old version of the thing you just installed. With analytics, they saw that many people forget to update before installing after a while, so they added an update step in that case. I call that progress, no matter how sm…

I can totally see the benefits of telemetry. But it would be way less phishy if it were opt-in, or at least opt-out with a very visible information message.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#155

Post by mhenr18 »

hueving wrote: post #50
tehbeard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opt in may be "more honest", but you're going to see a a lot less useful data as a result of it, because the pool of people who will opt in is less than the pool of people who wouldn't care what the default is.

If you're going to be subversive to your users by playing on their propensity to ignore prompts, why bother with allowing them to opt out at all?

Let's assume that 90% of people don't bother to turn off telemetry and 10% do. That also means that in your preferred scenario, 90% of people wouldn't bother to turn it on and the 10% also wouldn't turn it on either. If you can't be bothered to turn something off, why would you be bothered to turn it on?

That means that you'll either get something close to 0% telemetry if it's default off, or 90% if it's default on. So, it makes sense to be default on if you want your telemetry dataset to be big enough to be worth it.

But then we get to your question - why bother with an opt out? Well, if the decision is either to use the product and send telemetry or not use the product, that 10% of people aren't going to use your product. They care about not sending telemetry that much.

At that point, as a dev you just have to ask yourself is it really worth losing 10% of your users to an always-on telemetry policy or is it OK to make the concession of allowing an opt out in order to grow your user base?

Personally, I'd rather make the concession and get that 10% of people on board. If they're vocal enough to complain the shortcomings of my product they're probably vocal enough to also talk about the good things and give me free advertising.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#156

Post by blub »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #118
froh42 wrote: post #38

As I didn't update brew for a long time I did not have the analytics version. So I upgraded to see what happens. In fact it did NOT prompt me when enabling analytics, but it did display a notice (hidden in several hundred lines of output during brew upgrade): ------------------- + 5a9e19f...7f13b37 master -> origin/master (forced update) * [new tag] 0.1 -> 0.1 HEAD is now at 7f13b37 Merge pull request #1562 from wood…

> Looking at the website one of homebrew's developers (or at least the website developers) is based over here in Europe. He might be a nice target if you want to raise a stink and litigate. Homebrew lead maintainer here. We're chronically understaffed and underfunded. We have analytics so we can make Homebrew better by figuring out how to prioritise security, maintenance and bug fixes on packages based on how much th…

It's surprising to hear that a package manager needs local analytics to figure out which packages are used.

On the other hand it was likewise surprising to hear that homebrew was using github as its CDN.

I don't rely on homebrew to do anything, but I am concerned about the normalisation of surveilance and will point that out in a reasonably polite manner.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#157

Post by _b8r0 »

pvinis wrote: post #136
blub wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US approach to privacy is "let the market sort it out". It has sorted it out by transforming the internet into a giant spying machine sucking up contacts, photos, documents, videos, metadata, what packages you use, when where and how you exercise, everything The EU approach to privacy (eroded by lobbying and lack of control over US companies) is that citizens have a right over their information. They can ask what…

Do you use brew? Have you contributed code to it? Have you installed something using brew, before updating brew for a while? For me, my answers are yes no yes. A while ago, you did that, and you get an old version of the thing you just installed. With analytics, they saw that many people forget to update before installing after a while, so they added an update step in that case. I call that progress, no matter how sm…

Why do they need to use Google Analytics and hand information over to a third party instead of using something hosted?

I get that there may be money involved, but presumably self-hosting also gives them more of the information to build out what they need.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#158

Post by bartread »

mikemcquaid wrote: post #118
froh42 wrote: post #38

As I didn't update brew for a long time I did not have the analytics version. So I upgraded to see what happens. In fact it did NOT prompt me when enabling analytics, but it did display a notice (hidden in several hundred lines of output during brew upgrade): ------------------- + 5a9e19f...7f13b37 master -> origin/master (forced update) * [new tag] 0.1 -> 0.1 HEAD is now at 7f13b37 Merge pull request #1562 from wood…

> Looking at the website one of homebrew's developers (or at least the website developers) is based over here in Europe. He might be a nice target if you want to raise a stink and litigate. Homebrew lead maintainer here. We're chronically understaffed and underfunded. We have analytics so we can make Homebrew better by figuring out how to prioritise security, maintenance and bug fixes on packages based on how much th…

Couldn't agree more: the shoot first and ask questions later treatment of OSS maintainers needs to stop right now. People who make use of OSS projects need to check their sense of entitlement at the door. People don't realise that a lot of these really valuable projects are run on next to zero budget but one, or a very small handful, of core contributors, who give up their own time to do so.

If things you don't like happen with a project, start a dialogue, fork it, or use something else instead. Don't just wade in making threats.

(Sadly, this has been going on for a very long time: I remember the debacle over .NET 2.0 support in NDoc where the author had some difficult personal circumstances coupled with people constantly hurling abuse at him. Net result: he understandably quit, not just NDoc but all OSS involvement, nobody else wanted to pick up the project, and the project died. This must have been 11 years ago now but it seems like, since then, the problem has if anything become worse.)

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#159

Post by Chris2048 »

hdra wrote: post #137
froh42 wrote: post #38

As I didn't update brew for a long time I did not have the analytics version. So I upgraded to see what happens. In fact it did NOT prompt me when enabling analytics, but it did display a notice (hidden in several hundred lines of output during brew upgrade): ------------------- + 5a9e19f...7f13b37 master -> origin/master (forced update) * [new tag] 0.1 -> 0.1 HEAD is now at 7f13b37 Merge pull request #1562 from wood…

>Looking at the website one of homebrew's developers (or at least the website developers) is based over here in Europe. He might be a nice target if you want to raise a stink and litigate You're perfectly within your right to feel conned by the data collections. I myself opted-out after I saw the message when I installed home-brew few months ago and, yes, I am a bit bummed that I have to take these extra efforts to o…

There are too many projects as there are, let them "burn out" and make way for those that aren't spyware.

Giving away something for free gives no guarantee of quality, but doesn't justify stealing analytics.

Re: Brew commands send data to Google Analytics

#160

Post by yoo1I »

jakebasile wrote: post #120

This really doesn't concern me at all. I don't feel I am harmed by Google possibly knowing what software I install, because if anyone wants to look I keep the script that installs it in my public dotfile repo on GitHub. Can anyone explain to me how this could be used against someone? I'm asking completely seriously as I don't see any harm in this no matter how hard I try. Edit: I do agree that the notice should be mo…

> Can anyone explain to me how this could be used against someone? I'm asking completely seriously as I don't see any harm in this no matter how hard I try.

This is called the "nothing to hide" argument. If you currently have no foes and are generally closer to the elite of a society than to the margins, then these few little data points collected on you (pseudo-anonymously or not) cannot really hurt your.

But as your digital shadow grows (and with google analytics et al being used to extensively, it certainly is) and you drift to the margins of society, possibly developing some foes in the elites in the process, the information about you that is now available to people in power becomes more threatening for you.

Say, you're now a black, female, delivery driver in Detroit instead of a Silicon Valley software engineer. Once you give cause for scrutiny, say, a conflict with your employer, the digital shadow of data-points can be searched to find anything that, taken out of context or not, can be used against you.

Or, put differently in famous exaggeration by Cardinal Richelieu:

  If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
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